Read This, Not That

Here, I become yet another irate blogger venting his disbelief and anger about the mind-boggling idea behind Drink This, Not That.

If you’re not familiar with it and are too lazy to click the link (fine by me), let me sum it up for you:
Americans get 25% or more of their daily calories intake from their beverages, this book is a guide that allows you to still drink everything that you want, but do it in a “more healthy” way. In this case, more healthy means – strictly – lower calorie, lower carbs. Why people around the craft beer industry are getting irritated with it are because of things like you see on the right here.

I guess what really bothers me is the focus of these books is not about making more healthy choices, it’s about making the same shitty choices you’ve been making, but with less destructive products. It’s not, “Don’t eat that giant basket of french fries, eat this salad!”, it’s “Don’t eat that giant basket of french fries, eat this giant basket of french fries!”

Look fatass, here’s your problem: back away from the french fries.

Quick secret, and I’m not trying to brag or anything, but last year I lost 40 lbs, and I would never… and I mean never dream about replacing my awesome craft beer with Mich Ultra. You know what I did? I ate less and got off of my fat ass and exercised.

This theory that Americans somehow can’t control their own consumption is insulting. As if they’re somehow saying, “When sitting down to consume an entire extra large pizza in one sitting, remember to buy the one with low fat pepperoni.”

You know what 12 Mich Ultras instead of 1 Sierra Nevada Bigfoot is? It’s binge drinking. It’s over-consumption. It’s the misguided notion that, somehow, more of something cheap and crappy is better than less of something of high quality. It’s exactly the misguided notion that gets us eating over-sized Whoppers and liter fountain drinks instead of taking the time to actually eat something that tastes good and is better for you.

But for $3.00, I can’t get a hamburger that big anywhere!

Right – and maybe you shouldn’t. You’ll buy a lot fewer pairs of fat-legged sweatpants that way, Captain Wheezy. Do a cost analysis on your trips to Wal-Mart, McDonalds, and triple-bypass surgery and see where you come out in the end.

So, here’s my take.

Drink This: One high-quality great-tasting beer that you will greatly enjoy.
Not That: Twelve flavorless pints of empty calories.

Responses to this post » (9 Total)

I’ll add my disdain for their misleading representations: On the cover (pictured above) that’s a 12 oz. bottle of Bigfoot, but those appear to be 16 oz. glasses of “beer suggested to be Mich Ultra,” an over-representation by 48 oz. Ironic that the appeal to “drink smarter” is being supported by an image tailor-made to appeal to overindulgence.

Hmm still not convinced about High School of the Dead. Especially since the manga has been on limbo, bceuase the author hasn’t been able to figure out how to continue the plot. As for Ichiban Ushiro Dai-maou, I gave that up with the episode when the Demon King’s friend turned out to be some sort of super hero.FYI, ecchi’ or H is pronounced eh-chee’. Ichi’ (ee-chi) means one (as in Ichiban’ = #1).

The switch to smarter food purchases with respect to “how much can I get for this many dollars?” took me a while to finally hammer home. For example: I get popcorn at the movie theatre, but it’s always a small and when they ask me if I want to make it bigger I say “no, medium is ridiculous, I only need a small.”

When it comes to beer, I have been doing much of the same. I still follow my weight watcher points on a daily basis. (Some days I watch myself blow them all away but hey…at least I am watching right?). I keep one or two DFH 120’s in the house. Two weeks ago I had a four pack of the Imperial Porter you showed me the last time I was in NC…a four pack over the course of a three day weekend. Last weekend I had a bottle of Saison Dupont (again, thank you for educating me on the Saison style).

In all of these cases I selected a small amount of something awesome and enjoyed it for what it is. It has taken me longer to do the same with my love of sushi but I am getting there. For craft beer I have found myself moving away from a session mentality and more to a feature presentation mode of thought on an evening of beer.

Right on, Erik. In truth, I interpreted that the Sierra Nevada was 12x “worse” for you than a Michelob Ultra, and not as an overt invitation to binge drinking. On the other hand, knowing our culture, we all know that is where many will take it.

This is funny. We wrote about this same thing about a day apart. It seems that the same type of bullshit irritates both of us. I saw this while I was on break at a temp job that I had and I wanted to puke. Sure, not drinking the 1300 calorie Cold Stone shake daily makes sense but when beer is lumped in with that sort of drink I get bothered. Obviously, I agree with the sentiment…we’re going crazy from our lives of sitting and watching the tube. Good thing we have the safety net of lapband to rescue us.